


it's starting to show

by sparkycap



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Beautiful Golden Fools, Episode Related, F/M, Gender Roles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21589339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparkycap/pseuds/sparkycap
Summary: Jaime knows carelessness is a luxury, it's just not one he knows how to pass along to his sister. But he tries.
Relationships: Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister
Comments: 13
Kudos: 32





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**Author's Note:**

> I don't usually post anything under 1K at least, but there's no way this is getting any longer and I'm over here starving for more fics that thoughtfully explore these disaster twins' gender issues. Which this... isn't really, but almost is. Set during season one episode three when Cersei was scolding Jaime for being too careless and he threatened to, like, murder everyone for her.

Cersei has always worried too much.

Almost always. When they were children, she might have worried just the proper amount, or at least that’s how she would describe it. To hear her tell it, she was sensibly, reasonably cautious, and Jaime was forever leaping off cliffs, never knowing what he’d find at the bottom.

This was untrue. Jaime always knew what he was leaping toward, running toward, fighting toward, because it was always the same thing. It was always her.

Back then, they looked more alike. Same small, childlike build. Same golden hair that Cersei knew how to pin to hide the length of hers. If she wore his clothes, they might have been identical. They might have been one person. One soul. When everything was simple and easy and right, it was because the outside matched the way they’d always felt inside.

And then Jaime grew taller and Cersei grew breasts. Her hips widened and his shoulders broadened. His voice deepened and hers did too, but it made him sound like a man and her sound like a goddess. The first time she bled, she’d cried in his arms for hours, until they were both slick and dirty with it and it was impossible to tell where between their tangled legs it had come from. It was the last time she’d ever sobbed like that, with real abandon.

Jaime has been accused of being less-than-perceptive, but he knows the moment his sister stopped feeling safe in her skin was the moment she stopped looking just like him.

After all, Jaime knows something most other men don’t know: it’s not that women are born weaker, all children are weak – it’s just that the world breaks them before they have a chance to grow strong. Cersei had longer before she had to be a woman full-time, that’s why she’s stronger than the rest. The world, he thinks, has been trying to make up for lost time ever since.

The difference between then and now is that at least then, he’d still been able to make her smile when they were alone. He can’t remember the last time he’d gotten more than the press of her pretty lips tugged slightly to the side. He can’t remember the last time she’d truly laughed.

He laughs, when she slaps him. He can’t help it; he doesn’t know when to stop anymore. Somewhere along the line, he started overcompensating. Trying to help her relax turned into telling her to calm down. He used to be able to coax her into his arms. Now he simply has to grab her for himself and hold her there until she gives in. It works. This, at least, still works.

“Jaime,” she whispers, finally.

“It’s all right,” he breathes, skims his nose along her cheek, her silky hair. “It’s all right.”

She holds tighter to his arm around her, closes her eyes. He closes his eyes too, to make it easier. Easier to pretend. He can feel her breathing, he can almost hear her heartbeat if he listens hard enough. Can feel it always, beating in time with his own. He can pretend he’d already done what he promised, kept his most important oath. Tearing down the rest of the world – it’s the only way either of them will ever be safe, whatever awful things he has to do to get them there.

What Jaime knows that most men don’t: loving a woman in this world, truly loving a woman – it means breaking your own heart to make the pieces fit with hers.


End file.
